Leaders ponder 'what went wrong?'

China's premier, Wen Jiabao, is present, but his country is hurting as the global downturn hits its exports and growth rate. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave the opening address – astonishing given his country's record of cutting off gas exports to Ukraine and thus indirectly to Europe. But Putin's hope to make petro-state Russia a major power has been hampered by falling oil prices.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are attending, but the members of the European Union can't even agree on how to handle the financial crisis.

The missing player is the United States. Everyone here is talking about President Obama. People keep congratulating me on

America's choice of president and regretting that it was too soon after his inauguration for him to come to Davos. Obama's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, and his national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, were to attend but backed off, supposedly because of urgent work at home. Obama aide Valerie Jarrett is here, but that hasn't filled the palpable vacuum.

The yearning for Obama shows how much Davos leaders want a silver bullet to fix the global crisis, even as they realize there is none.